Dana White: Holly Holm will fight once before rematch with Ronda Rousey
Last year, Holly Holm leapfrogged Miesha Tate, who had been promised the opportunity, to get a shot at the women’s bantamweight title, then held by Ronda Rousey. On Wednesday, it appears that Tate jumped ahead of Rousey, who had been promised a rematch, to get the next shot at Holm, who scored the biggest upset in UFC history at UFC 193 with a second-round knockout.
UFC president Dana White announced on Fox Sports 1’s “UFC Tonight” that Holm would make a title defense prior to a rematch with Rousey. White offered no details about Holm’s next fight on the broadcast and offered no information afterward when questioned by Yahoo Sports.
Asked by Yahoo Sports if Tate would get the fight, White replied by text message, “We don’t have a fight for Holly yet. We have a lot of work to do.” He also replied “No” when asked if he had a time frame for when Holm’s next match would be held. And when asked when Rousey would fight, White wrote, “All gonna depend on timing. We have no answers right now on any of this.”
So all that is known officially is that Holm will risk the mega-dollar rematch for a fight against an opponent to be announced who will carry significantly less interest than an immediate rematch with Rousey would. There is no one Holm could face, in or out of the UFC, who would generate anywhere remotely close to the interest and money that a rematch with Rousey would have.
White had earlier said that he planned to book a rematch with Rousey at UFC 200, a show that he was optimistic could sell 2 million buys on pay-per-view. Tate defeated Jessica Eye in Chicago in July in a fight in which White had promised the winner a shot at the title.
Tate won the fight, and White reiterated at the post-fight news conference that night that she’d face the winner of the bout between Rousey and Bethe Correia, which was scheduled for the following week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the main event of UFC 190.
Rousey stopped Correia in 34 seconds, but White then changed his mind on putting together Rousey-Tate III. They fought in 2012 on Strikeforce, and then in 2013 at UFC 168, with Rousey winning by submission in both matches.
He said then he felt there wasn’t any pizazz in a third fight between Rousey and Tate, and instead gave the match to Holm, a former boxing champion who’d signed with the UFC amid much hoopla.
Though it was grossly unfair to Tate, White’s instincts were correct. Rousey-Holm at UFC 193 turned into a runaway success financially. It drew a record crowd of 56,214 to Etihad Stadium and did the second-highest pay-per-view number in company history. It also was the second largest-grossing fight card in MMA history.
Holm, who recently signed a long-term contract extension, had previously said she was agreeable to a rematch with Rousey, but didn’t want to wait until July, when UFC 200 will be held, to fight her. She preferred to remain active.
From a competitive standpoint, it’s understandable.
But from a financial standpoint, it’s highly risky and could go down with ex-boxing heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman’s decision to decline long-term contracts from HBO and Showtime after upsetting Lennox Lewis to win the belt in 2001 as a major financial blunder. In turning down the long-term deals that would have paid him in excess of $40 million, Rahman said, “I believe in me,” but was knocked out by Lewis in the rematch and never came close to making the kind of money he had been offered.
If Holm successfully defends the title, then she could move into a rematch with Rousey that will be massive. If she loses, however, it would take significantly away from the rematch. Rousey-Holm II will be big under any circumstance, but it would have the potential to be record-setting if Holm goes in as the undefeated champion.
There is still much to be figured out, but Holm has shown without a doubt that she’s a gambler.
Win the interim fight and she gets an extra payday and still has the lucrative Rousey bout ahead of her. Lose it, and it could be financially disastrous.
The UFC brass attempted to talk her out of it, but she stared them down and won. Now, she’ll have to win again to make sure the decision pays off.
